Friday, July 18, 2014

This race, one of the highlights of the summer jumping programme, is a regular target of Peter Bowen; the Welsh handler boasts a decent record in the race but hasn't won any of the past five renewals.

This year Jonjo O'Neill saddles four - Lost legend, It's A Gimme, Dursey Sound and course and distance winner The Nephew.

McCoy has chosen It's A Gimme but has previously won on each of the three stablemates so the champion jockey should certainly know what's required.

Of the Bowen pair Lamboro Lad was well beaten behind The Romford Pele last time (Pantxoa pulled up) while previously he found Guess Again too good at Perth; Book'Em Danno, racing in a first-time tongue-tie, beat Grandads Horse over course and distance last month and probably holds the better chance.

I note that six of the fifteen strong field have the form comment 'made [virtually] all' recorded for a recent race (Kie, Pantxoa, Guess Again, Creevytennant, The Nephew and Woodbank) and Book'Em Danno also likes to race with the pace, all of which suggests it could be cut-throat up front; good fencing will be at a premium.

The weather is likely to prove problematic as well with sporadic torrential downpours forecast - it's difficult to know exactly how the ground will ride.

Guess Again hasn't always been the most fluent of jumpers but he's a tough customer who has won over further and won't be inconvenienced by any rain that falls. At the prices this evening (10/1 BetVictor) he looks a reasonable value each-way play.

Friday, July 04, 2014

Following on from my last post, with all the group stage matches now completed, I have been asked to provide updated figures for the predictions made by Nicolas Scelles and his research team at the University of Stirling.

So, here goes...

The correct score prices quoted were the best available as shown on the Oddschecker site on Wednesday-Thursday 11-12 June, before a ball had been kicked in the competition.

Interestingly, in the correct score markets Ladbrokes were best or joint-best priced on 31 of the 48 matches (64.58%) while BetVictor were best or joint-best priced on 12 of the 48 matches (25%).

Six correct scorelines were predicted from the 48 group games as shown
below: